Some parents try very hard not to make this a habit to give their sons a pacifier when he’s cranky for fear that it will be difficult to wean him from it after he gets older. A recent study suggests that it may be detrimental for boys’ future emotional wellbeing. According to the article, “Pacifiers May Pose Obstacle to Boys’ Emotional Development, Study Says,” on The Huffington Post website, the results of a new study reports, “The study suggests that pacifiers physically block baby boys’ (and notably not girls’) ability to copy expressions they see on the adults around them—thereby getting in the way of their emotional development.

Although it’s not clear why, the researchers found that always having a pacifier in their mouths hinders baby boys from copying adults’ expressions, so they don’t learn about emotions the way they could be learning them. Researchers suggest that parents may be inadvertently giving their sons a pacifier because “boys are desired to be unemotional, when you plug them up with a pacifier, you don’t do anything to compensate and help them learn about emotions.”